Sunday, 23 October 2005
testing flock
I’m up far too late, trying to get ready to leave for Monterey tomorrow, where I’ll be attending and speaking at Internet Librarian 2005.
While my clothes spin in the dryer, I’m playing with Flock, the new socially-enabled browser. It accesses my del.icio.us bookmarks, and lets me post to my blog. I’m sure it does additional nifty stuff, but discovering the rest of its features will have to wait until after I’ve packed, flown, and settled into my hotel.
It’s a three-day trip, with lots of wonderful presentations, so I expect that I’ll be blogging regularly while I’m there—as I did two years ago when I attended the 2003 IL conference. One of my most-linked-to-posts ever was my live blogging of Mary Ellen Bates’ “30 Search Tips in 40 Minutes” session from that conference, and I’m looking forward to attending her session again this year!
portola plaza's awful internet access
So, I’m staying at the Portola Plaza in Monterey, which is the hotel that the conference organizers are putting me up in. With any luck, however, I won’t be staying here again.
For $9.95/day (payable in advance for the whole stay, presumably so I won’t get so annoyed with them that I change my mind about paying for access midstay), I get a 36-inch ethernet cable tethered to the desk. (Forgot to bring a wifi access point with me, alas, so I can’t extend my reach.
No wifi in the public areas or the rooms, the clerk told me. But out of habit, I checked for open networks when I got into my room. Found three—“Lower Lobby Front,” “Lower Lobby Middle,’ and “Lower Lobby Rear.” So, of course, I tried getting online with one. Here’s what I got:
?!?
$1/minute??? $300/day???? With the caveat that of course that includes absolutely no technical support or guarantees of reliablity?
Feh.
Color me very unimpressed.
